


Katinka

by Glasssneaker



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: (after the prologue), Actually there is major character death, Angst, F/F, F/M, I'm a positive person, POV First Person, Pre-Canon, The kind of fic that blurs the line between fanfiction and original fiction, a bit of a dark fantasy maybe, because it's mostly original characters, but I promise it's still deeply connected with canon so it's still fanfiction indeed, but it's either not canon characters or you already knew/guessed, but not extremely, character-driven, it's not all bad I promise, maybe a nod here and there, mostly just my imagination, not much to do with the 80's magicats, or dark fairytale, so I didn't use a warning, so maybe more melancholy than dark anyway, there's love and there's hope
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:41:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27302848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glasssneaker/pseuds/Glasssneaker
Summary: Katinka did not agree that her life was like a fairytale.Fairytales, to Katinka, seemed mostly bad. Or at least, they were bad for a really long time, before they became good. Her life was just good.But Katinka didn’t know how many times she had barely escaped a bad life by the age of eighteen.
Kudos: 4





	1. (Prologue) The Inside World

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone!
> 
> This is my take on the whole non-existent backstory of Catra's that no one in the crew cared about.
> 
> Or rather, it's the story of the person who was her mother. I did not mean to write this. But she came into my head, and she was a loud voice, and suddenly I was calling her "Katinka" and I had yet again a new fictional friend.
> 
> I also meant to write the whole thing through before I posted anything, because I usually do that, but I've been sitting on the beginning for long enough, so here goes nothing.
> 
> (Although I don't know if this even is the type of fic anyone reads. xD I guess I'll see!)

Katinka did not agree that her life was like a fairytale.

When she started school, she quickly became the most popular girl in her class, if only because her fathers owned a bakery. She wasn’t naturally the popular kind. Instead of a charismatic gleam in her eyes, she had a dreamy one, and instead of inviting, her smile was heart-melting, in a juvenile way. But, given the more than inviting smell of the bakery goods in her lunch box, such a mistake was easy to make. Knowing that Katinka’s fathers would give yesterday’s creamy donuts away for free, made her the person everyone wanted to go home with. Without the pink, the yellow, the rainbow-coloured, sugar-coated goods wrapping this little blue-eyed, brown-haired girl in their glittering light, she might have looked plain. But as it was, she almost looked like a princess.

Katinka gave her friends an endless supply of sugar high, and they took her to play by the river where the fireflies came out. Had it not been for the clear advantage of her position, she might have been regarded differently by the unforgiving popular little children. She was simply lucky.

But her life was not like a fairytale. She knew fairytales. She had heard them all. They were full of evil stepmothers, dark magic, scared little girls, brave heroes who swept them off their feet, and true love’s kisses that barely saved the day.

Katinka knew nothing of such things. She lived in the inside world. She had two loving fathers. Magic to her was fresh bread, glowing bugs, and the blissful isolation of the Valley. The most scared she had ever been was her first visit to a dentist. She had no need for brave heroes, and if anyone had swept her off her feet she probably would have screamed. The moonlight kissing her skin was one of the best things she knew. Her little world didn’t need saving. She had all the love anyone could hope for, but it wasn’t the kind that could blow up the stars. It was the kind that made her nights safe to sleep, mornings happy to wake up to, her days fly by, and her evenings warm. So, her life was nothing like a fairytale.

Fairytales, to Katinka, seemed mostly bad. Or at least, they were bad for a really long time, before they became good.

Her life was just good.

But Katinka didn’t know how many times she had barely escaped a bad life by the age of eighteen.


	2. Applesauce

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Tell me a story?"

Purilla’s gaze lingers where the desperate go to trade lives. Though no one is that desperate. Papa has always said so. As if he fears that I might be persuaded into something so stupid. Please. I’m his eighteen-year-old daughter, not a wombat recovering from a concussion.

I don’t know why Purilla keeps looking, though. The entrance has always been there, just a part of the scenery in the woods. _Rabbit Hole_ , it’s called. Just a hole at the base of a big rock, mostly covered by thorn bushes. You might go there as a last resort, and you’d find yourself falling down for who knows how long, before it would take you to this place with eerie lights. Apparently. I’ve obviously never been there. And then, in exchange for far too many lives, you might get a wish granted. It used to be fair, or at least a better deal. A long time ago, when magic wasn’t so scarce. That’s what I’ve been told, anyway.

– What is it? I ask, nudging Purilla’s shoulder. She blinks and smiles at me with her big, shiny eyes.

– Nothing. What, you scared I’m about to tell you I started hearing voices, or something?

She giggles.

 _Diversion_ , I think. I should know her well enough.

– Well, you were not looking for bugberries either, I say, and she rolls her eyes.

I guess I shouldn’t pry. Usually it’s her telling me I’m too private. Though, it’s more like I just don’t have an impulse to think aloud, like she often does.

– I just haven’t been here for a while. The place gives me the creeps! she says, and skips past me, through the bushes ahead of us, and I think she’s going to get her wild red hair stuck, but she doesn’t. Of course not. Leave it to Purilla to prance through life without a scratch. I follow her into a clearing.

In the light, my best friend looks like granite. Almost everyone I know has freckles, at least in the summer, but no one else is as freckled, or as ginger as Purilla.

Well. No one else is the princess, either.

Dad is in the bakery when we get there. I can see from his smile that he can already smell we came empty handed, when he looks at our sad baskets.

– No luck, huh?

– It’s weird, I say. – It should be bugberry time, but I guess summer was late this year?

– I guess, Dad says, though he doesn’t seem to care too much. He’s far more excited about the applesauce he’s been making for the last few days. I guess it’s just me, and Purilla, who really wanted to make bugberry tarts for the Fly Night. For me, good food is always half of the fun. The rest of the night is actually pretty stupid, if you ask me. How catching fireflies and trying to push each other into the river became a tradition that has lasted for generations, is beyond me. But I’ve managed to avoid the bath for years, so I guess the company, and the excuse to make a ton of good food is worth it.

It looks like we are going to use the apples for the tarts this year, since there’s more than enough of them, every nook in the kitchen is full.

– Can we use the small oven?

– All yours, Dad says. A part of me is glad Papa is doing an inventory tonight. Even after he’s done with the shop, he’ll be too busy in the kitchen’s storage rooms to get a chance to make Purilla feel awkward. I almost don’t feel bad about thinking that, because he _does_ make her feel awkward even after so many years. He says he gets that Purilla doesn’t want to be treated any different from my other friends, but at the same time he doesn’t seem to be able to act that way entirely. It’s like, in his head, it’s the princess’s duty to protect the Valley, as it is his duty to keep everyone in cinnamon rolls. So, even if Purilla is fine doing the dishes with me, cleaning up our own mess, it makes Papa uncomfortable. It could be that he’s simply ancient, he’s older than Dad too. Or it’s just a Papa thing. Go figure.

We retreat to our privacy behind the small oven, leaving Dad alone to whistle lovingly at his boiling pots of applesauce. It’s funny because he’s always whistling old drinking songs and still seems to think we can’t tell.

– Oh, I just remembered, Purilla gasps, while I’m gathering the right flours and spices on the table. She leans over, where I’m crouching half inside the cupboard, and says in a high note:

– _I know something you don’t know._

It makes me snort a little.

– Don’t you always.

– You remember that “ring” on Tai’s pinkie that I swore was Leonor’s earring?

Indeed, guys, gals, and non-binary pals. Meet Purilla. Purilla The Strong. Purilla, whose magic hides the Valley, from everyone, even from the Horde. Purilla who has, not nine, but a hundred lives. Purilla The Princess. Purilla the biggest gossip you’ll ever meet.

– Of course, I say. Purilla had made sure I confirmed she wasn’t imagining the thing on Tai’s finger, just the other day when we went through the plans for tomorrow night with everyone.

Purilla giggles and covers her mouth.

– It’s not!

She giggles more, and I resist the urge to roll my eyes.

– And you know this, because…? I ask, only because I know she really wants me to.

– Because Leonor asked me today if it was _mine_! Can you imagine? Me and Tai?

She bursts into laughter and I can’t help but lose it as well.

– We’d all be doomed if you married Tai!

– That’s what he said! When I told him it wasn’t mine! He said “Good, because even your magic is no match for Tai’s stupidity”!

And her imitation of Leonor’s guttural voice is so good we can’t help but lose it again. It’s all in good spirit, we all love Tai, after all. But it’s the sad truth her brain can’t keep up with her imagination. When she was little, she thought it rained because there were fish living in the clouds, and they were having a funeral and crying. One time, when we were still at school, she refused to eat her lunch because there was an ant in it, and she didn’t want to eat its home. So, I guess she’s a darling, sort of genius and yet so idiotic at the same time.

– Knowing Tai, it’s probably not anyone’s, I say once I can breathe again. – Not like that. She probably just found it on the ground and didn’t realize it was an earring and not a ring. I wouldn’t be surprised if she thought it was a frog’s crown or something. Her brain just never goes for the obvious.

Purilla can’t disagree. She leans on the table by the hip and wrinkles her nose, while I mix the flours.

– But that would be so boring, she says. – What does it say about this place that Tai and Leonor’s secret affair would’ve been just about the most interesting thing that’s happened in a month?

I hand her a knife and a basket of apples.

– That we are lucky, I say. – And that you are strong.

Purilla smiles sheepishly.

Even the upstairs, where we live, smells like apples when we go to sleep. Purilla says she’d love to fall asleep in a house that smells like ours, every night. Apparently, she doesn’t sleep over often enough, or it’s just the kind of day she believes she could never get tired of anything she likes. It’s completely untrue and I’ve witnessed it many times.

I’m about ready to pull the blanket over my head, but Purilla finds matches on the mantel, and lights up a candle on my windowsill.

– I’m too excited to sleep. Tell me a story?

She settles under the blanket, next to me. My eyes feel a little heavy, but I know she isn’t going to let me sleep until she gets tired. She can’t help it, even if she tries to be quiet, her mouth will open every time she has a new thought. Words are just the air Purilla breathes out.

– About Tai and Leonor’s secret affair? I say, and grin at her.

– Yes!

Purilla giggles and snuggles closer to me.

– Okay…

I take a deep breath.

– I think it was a clear afternoon… no, um, it was a misty night. Tai went out to her backyard because she had suddenly woken up to a feeling. A strange feeling. Just a feeling, that a snail might drown into a puddle she saw there earlier that day…

Purilla punches my arm a little.

– Sometimes you’re almost mean, she whispers. I swallow my laugh.

– Tai had to eliminate the puddle. And she wasn’t expecting any help, but then, she suddenly heard a rustle behind the bushes in her garden. That’s when Leonor appeared. With his normal “Hi, I’m Leonor and I think it’s totally normal to creep around people’s yards at night because my to-do list keeps me awake and I’m too much of a chicken to go into the woods at night, and what’s the big deal, we all know each other anyway. And oh, I carry a tiny shovel in my back pocket, since you never know when you’ll need one” look.

Purilla snorts.

– How can all that possibly be a look?

I roll my eyes.

– Because it’s Leonor. Duh.

– Now that you mention it, he did carry a shovel around sometime during first grade!

I grin happily since she got the joke.

– Anyway, Tai’s eyes got shiny, and she was like: “Oh, you’re worried about the snails too?”

I try to imitate her high and leaky voice and bat my eyelashes, because Tai’s are unnaturally long. It makes Purilla giggle.

– Leonor was like: “What? Oh, uh, yeah. I mean, totally!” And then they grabbed the shovel together, and when their hands touched, they fell in love, saving the snails by shovelling the water with their shared shovel. As if they were cutting a wedding cake together. The end.

Purilla slaps me lightly.

– Really? That’s all I get? No kiss? Not even a snuggle?

I frown.

– I’m not going to imagine our friends doing anything like that, not even for your amusement.

Purilla snorts.

– Lame. You have no problem roasting them for their quirks, but a little smooch is too much for you? What a prude.

I shove her.

– I am not a prude! It’s just… well, it’s just wrong.

She snorts.

– Well, that didn’t make me sleepy at all, since you gave me no warm and fuzzy feelings.

– Yeah… I’m going to let it slide that you even wanted to feel warm and fuzzy about _Tai and Leonor_ , I say, shaking my head. – You tell me a story then.

Purilla doesn’t argue. She crosses her arms, like she’s thinking hard, and her eyes fixate on the candle flame. She stares at it for a good while in silence. Enough for me to start feeling a little drowsy again.

Then she says:

– It was a dark, stormy night…

I bump her with my elbow.

– If you’re going to tell me a scary story, you’ll be the one too scared to go to the river tomorrow night.

– No, I won’t, I promise. I’m not going to be able to sleep if I don’t say what I’m thinking now.

I shrug. Purilla looks serious enough.

– Fine.

I close my eyes.

– The shadows looked almost unnaturally long, Purilla goes on. – You could’ve sworn the tree branches pounding at your windows were… hands.

– Me? I ask and crack an eye open.

– It doesn’t have to be _you_ you. It’s just… a you.

– Alright.

Purilla sighs quietly.

– But you ignored it. All of it. You went about your routines. After all, the storm wasn’t inside your house. You had good windows, good doors. You’d made sure they would keep the storm out. The storm… had nothing to do with you.

Purilla’s voice is making me sleepier.

– A storm will pass. That’s what they always told you. That’s how the world worked. But… this storm… didn’t pass.

I hear Purilla swallow.

– It went on and on. It got stronger. Louder. But you drowned out the noise. After all, it wasn’t supposed to have anything to do with you. Even when your neighbours’ houses started giving in… you stayed inside. Quietly, out of sight. Because that’s what you had always done. That’s what you were taught to do. Your world had always worked that way. You didn’t bother anyone, and in return, no one bothered you.

I muffle a yawn.

– So, you waited, Purilla says quietly, almost a whisper. – You waited, and while you were sleeping soundly, all kinds of terrible creatures started crawling out of the shadows in that storm you wanted nothing to do with. While you had shut your windows, blocked all the cracks in your walls, your neighbours were eaten by monsters. Their houses, their food, their children, all engulfed by unimaginable horrors.

Purilla’s voice is calm and distant. She can get that way when she’s starting to fall asleep.

– You thought it was supposed to be that way. Everyone was supposed to take care of themselves their own way. You had your way. Your neighbours, they had lived there longer. They had their ways. Yours had nothing to do with theirs. Your lives were just different, long before the storm. It was fine that your way was taking care of yourself first. It was fine to give your all to keeping your house safe, because it didn’t hurt anyone. You had never asked for anything from your neighbours, so it was fine they got nothing from you either. If they perished in the storm, that was their loss, not yours.

I almost think Purilla has suddenly fallen asleep. Then she goes on.

– If only that was where it ended, she whispers. – But the storm got stronger again. The creatures cracked your living room windows. You thought it was fine, after all, you still had the rest of the house to live in. But they clawed down your walls. You barricaded yourself upstairs, thinking there was still room to live there. Everything was fine, as long as you had just one safe room left. And soon it became reality. You _had_ just one room left. And it was fine, because the storm was going to be over any minute now, and the creatures would never get inside your room. That’s just how the world worked.

Purilla goes quiet again.

– But it’s not how the world works, she says. – You have backed yourself into a corner. Just like in those stories you always heard as a child, where someone was chased by a murderer, and avoiding their certain death, they kept locking themselves away in the next, and the next, and the next room until they had no way out, and you thought: _What and idiot…_

Purilla’s voice is sleepy now.

– And now the storm is upon you, the creatures in your room. It’s too late. It’s too late to realize you’re an idiot, too late to wonder if it’s just your nature, or something you’ve inherited, and just not quite understood until now. It’s too late. You’re doomed. You’re all doomed. You should have known you couldn’t keep it up forever. Your forever is but a blink of an eye in the universe. You should’ve known, but you thought you were going to be just that lucky, you thought you were going to survive doing what you’ve always done, and… and now everyone is going to die.

Purilla goes quiet, very suddenly, and sits up. She blows the candle, and crawls back under the blanket.

I yawn and scratch my nose, some weird mix of Purilla’s words swimming around in my mind.

– That… was a weird story, I mumble, as the room starts to feel distant.

The day is so bright. Looks like we’re going to get a clear night sky, which is optimal for seeing the fireflies. It’s not even worth mentioning to Purilla though. To her, this whole thing is mostly about how many of the youngest kids, the newcomers, she manages to throw into the river. And yet she says I can be mean.

I’m working at the shop today, while Dad and Papa bake fresh bread and buns and apple pies. Purilla wants to help me, but I never let her, at least not much, because then Papa will think I’m faster than I really am which means more work for me in the future. Or, I tell him Purilla helped, which he won’t ever like. It’s just not worth giving him more grey hair for, it’s far easier to allow him his weird idiosyncrasies. I’m not claiming to be logical all the time either.

– I might be a little late, Purilla says when she’s heading out. – Things just piled up towards the evening for today, I couldn’t really help it.

– Everyone will understand, you have your duties. Don’t worry, I’ll wait for you here.

She smiles at me, but I can tell whatever is on her to-do list today, doesn’t inspire her. She has that slightly distant look in her eyes.

– Thanks, she says, and for a moment her smile gets brighter, more childish. – I love you, Katinka.

My heart jumps just a little, and I smile too. It’s not like we never say that. Just not usually for something as small as missing the beginning of a party for the other.

– Love you too.

She sends me a flying kiss and skips through the door.

I lose myself in the morning routine. I don’t care much for keeping things in order in my own room, but down at the shop it comes to me naturally. It’s relaxing, even. Stacking and piling and arranging and rearranging. Washing and dusting and discarding. Seeing that everything is in their place, and making lists, keeping track of things. It’s simple work, but maybe that’s why I enjoy it. I enjoy doing things that are easy, and I enjoy doing things well, so, I guess I was really lucky to inherit a profession where I can do something well, easily.

It also leaves me some time to daydream, because nobody needs their entire brain for this if there are no customers. People tend to come in flocks, so there are at least a few hours in a day that aren’t very busy.

Today, as soon as I open, people come in asking for Dad’s famous applesauce.

– I can sell it, but it won’t be at its best yet, so it’s better to let the jars sit, I remind them.

– Indeed, says Ms. Patches, or Fat Hat Pat, as me and my friends call her. She wears ginormous hats.

– I prefer to buy them early, so that I might forget I even have them, she says, beaming. – Nothing is better than finding an unexpected treasure, tucked away inside a dull brown box.

The boxes do have “Applesauce” written on them in big letters, so I’m having a hard time imagining the circumstances in which the content could be surprising, but she’s a funny old woman.

Just when the first “flock” is heading out of the shop, there’s something happening outside. Fat Hat Pat notices first.

– Oh my. Is that a bad omen? I can never remember those, I hear her mutter. I’m crouching behind the counter, and all I can hear from outside is laughter, but when I stand straight, I stiffen. I can see a glimpse of that untameable mess of golden hair that always means trouble isn’t far away.

I run out of the shop after the customers and stop to stare at the far end of the town square. More specifically, my eyes fixate on the flagpole.

You have got to be kidding me. 

People, mostly my age, are gathering around the flagpole, and they’re all laughing. They’re all laughing while poor, tiny, Kitty-Liz is swinging in the air, hanging from the flagpole. Alright, she’s laughing too, but she has no idea it’s dangerous.

And in the midst of it all is Daemona, swinging _at_ the flagpole, threatening to cut the ropes and send the kid falling to the cobblestones.

I pick my jaw up and storm past everyone, because nobody else is going to say anything. They keep on laughing because everyone just loves Daemona. I push my way through the crowd with my elbows and grab her arm.

– _What_ stupid thing have you gotten in your head _now_?

She turns, and there’s that feral grin that I guess people are supposed to find intimidating, so I like to make a point about how I don’t. Daemona smiles at me with eyes as golden as her hair, then sighs dramatically and looks at the people who have gathered around the scene she’s causing.

– Alright, people, the fun is over, go ahead and scatter, she says and turns back to me. – The hag has arrived.

People laugh, but they start doing as she says, leaving me alone with her and the giggling kid on the flagpole.

I shove Daemona.

– Stop calling me a hag!

– Then stop acting like one, she says in this really condescending tone I really don’t like. I decide not to take the bait and start arguing about it, because it will only distract me from the matter at hand. I gesture at the flagpole instead.

– What are you doing?! Get her down from there!

Daemona smirks.

– That’s exactly what I was doing before you interrupted me.

– Yeah, with your claws!

In Daemona’s case, claws are indeed the appropriate word. I’ve seen her cut through solid stone. People say everyone used to have magic, not just our princess, and in these magic deprived times, we still retain an echo of it. Everyone is born with a gift, like Dad’s unusually sensitive sense of smell. But few people have anything as obvious as Daemona. Which may or may not have anything to do with the fact that she and Purilla are related.

– She was practically begging for it! Daemona says. – I wouldn’t have let her fall! I would have caught her!

– That’s not the point! Why do you never think? You could have easily cut down the entire pole with all that audience making you way too excited to pay attention, and who would’ve saved Kitty-Liz from the fall then?!

– Why do you always think I don’t know what I’m doing?! I was just having some fun!

– By hanging a four-year-old from her dress to the fucking flagpole?!

– She always lands on her feet! That’s, like, her gift!

Daemona's smirk has disappeared into desperation but that doesn't make me any happier.

– It’s way too early to say and you know that!

– Hey, you left the shop door open, you old hag!

– If you’re changing the subject, you’re a coward!

– _Kat the hag!_

Suddenly, we both fall silent, because Kitty-Liz is crying up there on the flagpole, now that she has stopped swinging and all her audience is gone. Daemona moves to grab the ropes immediately, with “crap” written on her face. It’s almost nice. The way you can always see what she’s feeling. Her face, her ears, even her tail, everything about her is so reactive. Definitely one of her redeeming qualities.

– Let her down gently, I say, and I get a look, like I’m the idiot here. But I don’t say anything more. She slowly lets Kitty-Liz down and I raise my hands to meet her, so she knows she’s safe. I pull her into my arms, unhook her dress, and pat her head.

– It’s okay, it’s okay, I tell her.

– Yeah, sorry buddy, Daemona says and pokes her nose gently. – Next time we’ll do something more fun.

When Kitty-Liz stops crying, I let her down, and luckily, she runs away full of energy.

I bump Daemona with my hip.

– I hope you never have kids.

She rolls her eyes.

– Your shop door is still open.

– Are you implying that I’m the irresponsible one here?

She sighs and crosses her arms.

– I honestly just don’t get how you manage to run the shop, act as my cousin’s handmaiden, and run around judging people all day.

I narrow my eyes at her, and I could say something back, oh, I could come up with so many unflattering things to say about her. But I decide I’m above it. I lift my chin.

– I’ll take that as a compliment, I say, and walk away. There are, indeed, customers standing at the door, wondering what’s keeping me. I hear Daemona’s laughter behind me and refuse to glance back at her. Then she yells after me:

– Save me some applesauce!

I turn a little, and say:

– I abide by the law of the jungle.

She goes her way, still laughing.

Back inside, after the next group of customers is gone, I put some applesauce aside. I guess I’m just in a benevolent mood today.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspiration music:
> 
> Perfect Day - Miriam Stockley  
> Cheshire Kitten - S. J. Tucker  
> In the Morning Light - Yanni


End file.
